Basically, "more skilled person just beats the person they're training at sparring until the person they're training improves without doing any fundamentals or teaching them the right way to do things" is a cruel and useless form of "training" and only makes sense if you're trying to show that the "teacher" is being cruel or doesn't know how to teach. Showing it as a legitimate and useful form of training indicates to me that the author didn't bother to do any real research.
There are sort of two ways to look at it as a trope.
It’s either one of those tropes that has no real world basis, but looks/sounds cool in storytelling and is useful for moving the plot along (see: torture, knocking someone unconscious, a lot of medieval fantasy government stuff)
Or it’s one of those things where the overlap between people who write books and people who practice martial arts is so small that most writers trust the trope blindly and never think past it.
Just a few tips from someone who's been doing HEMA fighting (and training) for about a year
-Drills. So many drills. Just doing the same motion, or set of motions, over and over and over until it's muscle memory. And then do it some more. These can be done with another person, so you can get a feel for hitting someone (else's sword), or they might be done to a dummy, or just to the air as part of a series of steps
-there is a surprising amount of reading! A lot of what we do is based on styles that originated in the 11th-15th centuries, and were literally written in manuals for future people to use. Sometimes the explanations and diagrams are very clear. Sometimes they are not.
- There is sparring, with variations on goals. Sometimes the goal is just 'hit each other'. Sometimes you will have specific caveats, like if you both deliver a 'killing blow' at the same time you have to run to opposite ends of the room and back
- Footwork drills
- lots of wrist and arm stretches, both with and without swords
- Moving through different blocks/base positions, and practicing different cuts from each position
- More drills, wearing armor or other appropriate gear
- Weights and cardio training! Both are extremely important for making sure you can 1. Swing your sword and 2. Keep swinging your sword when you're wearing 15 lbs of armor and have been hacking at people for a full 20 minutes
- Learning how to maintain your gear
- Practicing control of the blade- this is usually done by having a dummy target (or sometimes a real person), and swinging with full power but stopping before you actually make contact. Master swordsman can bring their blade within half an inch of their target.
- Even more drills
Obviously some of this is pretty modern, but I can't imagine that it would be incredibly novel even to people from 600 years ago. And if you have any questions, please feel free to ask!
Adding onto this with even more things, now that I'm nearly 2 years in and have done a couple of tournaments!
Footwork drills are really important! Learning how and when to move, and shift your weight on your feet, is crucial
When practicing solo I often do so in front of a full-length mirror so that I can actually see what I'm doing
There is also just a lot of sparring. Unfortunately you can't really get good at sword fighting without getting your butt kicked. A lot.
However! A good teacher will give you tips either during or after the fight, or both! A lot of the time it's things like 'you need to improve your footwork more, here are 10 different drills. Go do them.' However, there is also a fair bit of going back over certain 'plays' in slower motion, where they'll tell you exactly what you did wrong and how to fix it in the context of the fight.
Also, just as a side note, unless your character is the progeny of a wealthy lord, they are probably going to use borrowed equipment. It will not fit right. And it will reek with the stench of 1000 sweaty people. And if you train in it enough, when you do get your own gear that actually fits properly and only smells like your sweat, I swear you get 5x better overnight
At some point, everyone develops their own style. I've fought people who love to just make huge stabby lunges, people who make wild flourishes, big guys who just brute force it, guys who look like they'd blow away in a light breeze but are the fastest people you've ever met. It comes over time, and from learning as many different techniques as you can
Not sure how much they did this in Ye Olden Days but almost everyone I've met in HEMA now fights in at least two different styles (usually longsword and Sabre or rapier). As I said above, the more styles you learn, the better you get at all of them; many techniques that you learn from one style are applicable in some way to the other
Thats all I can think of for now, but if anyone has any questions feel free to reach out!
It's been a while since I've done martial arts, but this reminded me of some other points specifically about sparring as a training tool:
At least in the modern version of sparring, one of the things we learn is how to spar. There are standard protocols to sparring depending on the form you're learning, and it's super important that you follow them.
This is not just about learning how to be the attacker--you also need to know things like how to fall right, which you learn for real life but also for sparring, because it can be really unsafe for both you and the person you're sparring with if you don't know the basics of how to keep yourself safe.
Tapping out! When you're doing particularly forms where you're touching each other/grappling/doing joint locks/etc., one of the main ways you signal to stop is by tapping out. This is key to keeping people safe during sparring.
People can get hurt during sparring, especially if you screw up. I once almost dislocated someone's shoulder doing a joint lock (they were fine, they tapped out, we talked through it, we figured out what I did wrong), and I had someone hyperextend my elbow once. It also seriously exasperated my wrist's repetitive stress issue, particularly from someone repeatedly muscling through something they shouldn't be muscling through.
You can also give people concussions, cause bruises, or even break bones if you aren't careful. I got a bruise that took months to heal (probably a bone bruise) from falling the wrong way during some exhibition sparring on a wooden platform.
If you start sparring/partnered fighting when you don't have the foundation of how to fight, especially if you're partnered with someone who doesn't know how to properly guide you, it's really easy to build bad muscle memory. The right way to do something, is not always the instinctive way to do it, and if you get thrown into partnered fighting unprepared you will fall back on instinct, not training.
If sparring/partnered fighting is 100% losing with no real guidance, it won't teach you how to ever win, it will just teach you how to lose, which is actively unhelpful. The goal of sparring in that way becomes learning how to lose less badly, which may be great for self defense but isn't particularly great for actually learning how to successfully fight.
Muscle memory can also be very weird. I took judo when I was in college decades ago. I don't remember most of what I learned because I didn't use it, even in sparring. However, the stuff I did use is still deep in my subconscious. I can't slow down the moves to demonstrate because it requires thinking about it, but I have no memory of it; it's purely what my body remembers how to do.
It's important for people to actively train to retain their skills. Muscles atrophy or lose their elasticity and range of motion. You will forget what you don't use.
Things to consider when Writing about Gods & Religion!!
⊹ Are the gods actually real and active or is it all faith-based. because "god shows up physically to yell at people" is a very different vibe from "we haven't heard from them in 500 years but we still pray"
⊹ What do they want from their followers. worship, sacrifices, good deeds, chaos, entertainment. are they benevolent or kind of jerks about it. Ancient mythology gods were mostly jerks tbh
⊹ How many gods are there and do they get along. monotheism is simple but a messy pantheon where the gods have drama with each other?? so much more fun to write. they can have feuds. forbidden relationships. family issues
⊹ What happens when you die in this religion. reincarnation? specific afterlife? different afterlives based on how you lived? just nothing? this affects how people behave SO much
⊹ Who are the priests/priestesses and what's their role. are they magical conduits, political power players, just regular people leading prayers.
⊹ Are there religious laws and how strict are they. what are the sins/taboos. what happens if you break them.
⊹ What are the religious practices. daily prayers, annual festivals, pilgrimages, ritual sacrifices (of what though). the specific details make it feel real
⊹ Is there religious persecution. multiple religions that hate each other? one state religion and everything else is banned? forced conversions? people hiding their faith?
⊹ Do the gods play favorites or can anyone worship them. are there gods for specific groups (god of soldiers, god of thieves)
⊹ What proof is there that any of this is real. miracles? prophecies that came true? divine artifacts? or is it all just faith and tradition and nobody actually knows
⊹ How has the religion changed over time. do they have like reformation drama, lost texts?
⊹ What's the church's relationship with magic if magic exists. is magic a gift from the gods, heresy, completely separate, or did magic exist first and gods came later
Liv’s {Totally Optional Non-Mandatory Completely Voluntary} Pointers for Fleshing Out Character Relationships
Hi I’m liv e. and by middling demand I am going to blab a liiittle* bit about relationships.
So I will start by saying that I’m trained & licensed as a marriage and family therapist. So this is kind of what I do all fucking week. And I like this whole writeblr thing so why not make it fun and about fiction instead. LOL.
The purpose of this liiiiittle** post is to offer some ways in which you, a writer (great job btw!), might deepen your own understanding of the relationships between two or more characters in your writing. More specifically, by thinking a little deeper about how relationships function in real life.
These are ways in which I might conceptualize a relationship between people who seek my services as a clinician.
A small disclaimer: the VAST majority of my work is with couples (because I. prefer to see couples over families, lol), so this advice is coming from that perspective. Please keep in mind also that there are certainly infinite other ways to think about relationships. This is just the way I was trained. Or at least, the parts of my training that resonated with me the most, especially as I began writing more seriously.
My hope is that reading and practicing/toying around with these tips will help add another dimension to how relationships play out in your writing. So um. Cheers! Let’s chat.
⊹ How does someone get magic in the first place?? are they born with it, do they study for years, does it choose them, did they make a terrible deal with something they shouldn't have. this matters SO much for your storywhat are the limits. please give your magic limits.
⊹ What can't it do. what happens when someone pushes too far. A magic system with no consequences is so boring and also makes your plot unsolvable because why doesn't the protagonist just magic their way out of everything
⊹ Does using magic cost something? energy, years off your life, memories, sanity, blood. the more personal the cost the better honestly
⊹ How do people in your world feel about magic. Feared? Worshipped? Regulated by the government? illegal underground thing? totally normal like electricity? the social aspect is so underrated
⊹ Who has access to it? is it only the wealthy/powerful or can anyone learn it. Because that says a LOT about your world's inequality situation
⊹ Can it be taken away? stolen? blocked? this is great for conflict
⊹ Are there different types of magic or schools of it and do those groups like each other (they don't. they never do. use this)
⊹ What are the physical signs that someone has/uses magic. Glowing eyes, burns on their hands, going grey early, nosebleeds. Little details like this make it feel so real
⊹ Has the magic changed over time? like was it stronger/different a hundred years ago and nobody knows why what happened
⊹ is there a moral line that magic users aren't supposed to cross and who decided where that line was and why does your protagonist keep getting close to it?
⊹ And the most important question is honestly: what does the magic mean thematically. the best magic systems reflect something about the story's core themes and it doesn't have to be obvious but it should be there
“Unless you are following the dialogue with an action and not a dialogue tag.” He took a deep breath and sat back down after making the clarifying statement.
“And–” she waved a pen as though to underline her statement–“if you’re interrupting a sentence with an action, you need to type two hyphens to make an en-dash.”
“The speech tag is still part of the previous sentence,” she explained, ‘so it isn’t capitalised.“
“What do you mean?” he asked. “But there’s a full stop as part of the question mark!”
She nodded gravely. “I know!” she said. “A lot of people find this confusing. But the speech tag belongs to the line of dialogue, it’s still part of the sentence, so it’s wrong to capitalise it.”
She reblogged the post again, because she had recently read far too many potentially enjoyable stories marred by poor dialogue punctuation.
“There are two more ways"—she pointed to the blackboard—“to punctuate interruptions. One is with the em dashes outside the quotations marks to indicate continuous speech. The action occurs at the same time as speech. The other—” she sipped from a glass of water “—is em dashes within the quotation marks to indicate interrupted speech.”
Thank you, because having more than one way to interrupt dialogue is not confusing at all lol (I’ve only seen em dashes inside quotations, the other way hurts my brain—I prefer commas).
“Also, if someone is talking for long enough that there’s sections of uninterrupted speech, only the last paragraph ends with quotation marks.
"This is ment to indicate that the same person is still talking. When they finish and/or get interrupted, the next set of quotation marks indicate a different person talking”
“But then why does the beginning of the second paragraph still have a quotation mark?” person number two asks.
“To show that the new section is still dialog and lessen confusion on if the words being spoke out loud or not.”
Dogrose, of falling petal and loyal companion 🐕🌸
She’ll watch your back, in the glint of steel, in the falling of a petal. Treat her and her home with respect, watch for snails underfoot, leave anything you might have in access and use all that you are given. Leave nothing but footprints, and she will follow loyally behind, one paw in front of the other.
Arf Arf Arf!
Yesterday’s sword!
You can support me on Patreon for £1 and help me make stuff like this!
this is not that big of a deal to me but something I wanted to bring up nonetheless. as a blog aimed to post writing advice, I’m always happy to help when/if I can, but I can’t say I never wish people would treat me like a person rather than a bot or google search engine while asking me for advices on writing or questions about writing. and that means I wish more people would say hi, please, or thank you while sending in an ask and not just “how to (x)” “what is (x)” like you’d normally do when you googled something.
this is not to say I won’t answer your questions if you ask me something without saying hi, or please, or thank you, because like I’ve said, it’s not that big of a deal. but it’d be nice if more people could learn to say hi, please or thank you while asking people for help.
also I tend to prioritize and be more motivated to answer questions where the askers treat me like a human being. so there’s that. and I’m sure other people who run similar blogs feel the same way.
saying hi, please or thank you should just… always be a common sense when you ask someone for their help
the ADHD writer's guide to actually finishing a draft (no, seriously) 📝
okay, tumblr, writers... we need to TALK about how to actually finish a damn draft when your executive functioning decided to pack its bags and leave for a permanent vacation in the bahamas.
i'm not here to give you that basic "just set a timer!" advice that makes me want to throw my laptop into the sun. we all know those productivity hacks that work for neurotypicals make us want to scream into the void. (been there, screamed that.)
so here's the ACTUAL guide from someone who's written three novels while her brain was actively trying to sabotage her the entire time.
FIRST: accept that linear writing is a capitalist construct designed to torture us.
i'm serious. whoever decided writers should start at chapter 1 and proceed neatly to THE END clearly didn't have dopamine playing hide-and-seek in their prefrontal cortex.
write whatever scene has your brain chemicals SINGING today. that climactic fight scene that's six chapters away? the tender moment between your characters that happens in the middle? WRITE IT NOW while your brain is actually interested. i have finished entire novels by writing them in chunks and stitching them together like the beautiful frankenstein's monster they are.
SECOND: the 10-minute lie (that actually works???)
tell yourself you're only going to write for 10 minutes. that's it. no pressure. your adhd brain can handle anything for 10 minutes, right? the secret is that once you start, momentum becomes your best friend. sometimes you'll actually stop at 10 minutes (congrats, you still wrote something!) but often you'll look up and realize it's been two hours and you've written 2,000 words. and yes i've seen this a lot, like everywhere, where they tell you "set a timer for 5, and by the time you realize it's 2 hours" i've seen this many times before, and it actually works. at first i thought it didn't but boy, i was wrong.
THIRD: use your hyperfixation powers for good, not evil.
we all know that adhd comes with the superpower of becoming obsessed with random things for unpredictable amounts of time. WEAPONIZE THIS. create artificial urgency around your project. tell people about your deadline. make elaborate aesthetic pinterest boards. create a spotify playlist that you only listen to while writing this specific project. trick your brain into making your WIP the shiny new hyperfixation.
FOURTH: body-doubling saved my writing career and it can save yours too.
find another writer friend (or any friend who needs to do focused work) and sit together - virtually or physically - while you both work. something about having another human witnessing your work process bypasses the executive dysfunction. i swear it's actual magic. discord writing sprints, zoom sessions with cameras off but mics on - whatever works.
FIFTH: embrace the chaos of your natural writing cycle.
some days you'll write 5,000 words in a frenzy at 3am. other days you'll stare at the document for an hour and write "the." BOTH ARE VALID WRITING DAYS. the only consistency we need is returning to the document, not some arbitrary daily word count.
SIXTH: create external accountability that doesn't make you want to die.
deadlines from publishers? great. deadlines you set for yourself? your brain laughs and says "or what?" find the sweet spot - maybe it's a writing buddy you check in with, maybe it's a public progress tracker, maybe it's promising your sister you'll take her to dinner when you finish a chapter.
SEVENTH: the frankendraft approach.
your first draft DOES NOT need to be good, coherent, or even make sense. it just needs to exist. leave yourself notes like [FIGURE OUT HOW SHE GETS FROM THE CASTLE TO THE BEACH LATER] and keep moving. your adhd brain will thank you for not getting stuck in research rabbit holes for six hours.
EIGHTH: find your optimal writing environment through shameless trial and error.
maybe you need complete silence. maybe you need to be in a coffee shop with specific ambient noise. maybe you need to write standing up. maybe you need to dictate your novel while pacing around your apartment. there is no wrong way to get the words out.
i personally write best when i'm slightly uncomfortable (weird, i know) so i often end up writing while sitting on my kitchen floor with my laptop balanced on a chair. whatever works, bestie. a finished messy draft is infinitely more valuable than the perfect novel still trapped in your head. your adhd brain is simultaneously your greatest challenge and your greatest asset as a writer. the connections you make, the unique perspectives, the creativity - all of that comes from the same place as the struggles.
you've got this. now go write something, even if it's just for 10 minutes. i believe in you. ✨ -rin t.
✦ A free (and actually helpful) guide to leveling up your first 10 pages ✦If you're unsure whether your opening is ✨doing enough✨ to hook re
A gothic prompt pack for writers who love cursed universities, secret societies, and scholarly rot.✎ Write the Darkness ✎A 75-prompt horror
Using animals outside of foxes and snakes to convey the imagery of liars or bad prospect?
Alright so the associations we make with animals are largely determined by culture. Associations are malleable things. Perhaps you don't need to have your associations dependent on pre-existing ones. There is always an option to build your own associations.
Take for example, my recent post obsession, Tibetan mastiffs. I don't think there is any pre-existing baggage associating Tibetan mastiffs with say....death. But what if, say, I write a story, and everytime a death is about to occur, a tibetan mastiff appears in the background. As this pattern keeps repeating, eventually every time a tibetan mastiff appears...well, the reader thinks about death.
You could also avert typical assumptions this way. You know what liars and bad prospects are? Quick, fickle, shortsighted, cowardly. This could describe a fox, but this could also describe a deer.
Comparing characters to certain animals is a motif of that character. Let's say you have a liar character. Throughout the story, every time he lies, it's compared to a buck running blindly through the woods, because it's instictinal for him. Over time, this character builds up a deer motif that's unique to his character. So theoretically, you could use ANY animal
Heres a list of animals that are associated with liars and bad prospects IRL though
RATS. They're the most universally reviled creature because they're associated with filth. They're also associated with deceit and cunning, because they're genuinely clever creatures. Also if you call somebody rat-like-you're calling them a loser.
Raven/crows. If you mean bad prospects as in bad omens, well, ravens/crows have plenty of that baggage. Plus they're very intelligent. I myself in my story made a goddess of liars in my story a three-headed crow.
Weasels/ferrets. They're very wily little creatures and are often associated with trickery. They're also kinda looked down upon with disdain.
Opossums. They play dead. They're associated with trash and vermin. Honestly bad prospects cuz they can bring diseases.
Coyotes. They're traditionally considered trickster characters in Indigenous folklore, and in the 20th century they were quite literally desisped. Mass extermination campaign and anything. They were kinda the scrappy survivor.
Niche writing advice-why you should include tibetan mastiffs in your story
-guard dogs used by Buddhist monks in the mountains of Tibet, have seen spread as luxury breeds worldwide , but are still used for their original purpose
-deter snow leopards, wolves, bears
-acclimated to the mountain climate
-nocturnal
-huge, fluffy, lion-looking???
- not very aggressive if raised by humans
-did I mention fluffy????
-require exercise to remain healthy
-works for any genre of story
-think about it
-fantasy? maybe they're called something different, but they'd still be cool
-sci-fi? a sentient tibetan mastiff creature would be very iconic.
-contemporary? they can be used to invoke lots of symbolism
-romance? what speaks more to the rich love interest's character than their big fluffy mountain dog running around?
real posts that aren't just tibetan mastiff raving coming soon
if you want to request niche writing advice, send me an ask!
izzy806
areudirty
baratheonpilled
jacobvanloon
vaporwave
ellievsbear
